


See You On The Other Side

by peterqpan



Series: Harringrove Works [17]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Day 10: I'm sorry I didn't know, FebuWhump2021, Happy ending natch, M/M, Season 3 fixit of sorts, Steve will probably realize he wants some after staring at the ceiling tonight XD, Wary adventure participants to friends, no sexytimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29269467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterqpan/pseuds/peterqpan
Summary: Steve runs into--or rather, over--Billy Hargrove after Starcourt Mall, and he'sdeterminedto bring him home.  Billy's willing to help, if it means so much to Steve.As Steve listens to Billy, though, he starts to have suspicions about what's going on...
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: Harringrove Works [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1624003
Comments: 66
Kudos: 86
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [screamingsyral](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamingsyral/gifts).



Steve was driving at night, listening to the radio. The Eurythmics were blasting out his windows, the breeze whipping his hair and drying the sweat of Indiana in August, and there was _ nothing ahead of him in the road,  _ when suddenly Billy Goddamn Hargrove stepped out right in front of his car. The headlights lit up his bloodied wifebeater and the cigarette in his hand as the bumper of Steve’s car passed _ through  _ him, and Steve _ yelled.  _

The brakes screeched as Steve’s car came to an angled stop, and he panted, his arms up as he stared around, his heart thudding in his chest. He scrambled out to look back, and his tail lights showed a dark shape standing, idly, where he’d just driven his car. Steve jogged back. 

It was definitely Billy, sweaty, blueish, and bloodied as Steve had last seen him. He was smirking past Steve’s head. “...that you, pretty boy?” he asked, with a rasp in his voice Steve didn’t remember, and black fluid dried down his chin and neck.

“Don’t cream your pants,” Steve said automatically, jerking his head to squint at his car, then back to where Billy was standing, smack between the rubber marks where he’d tried to stop. 

“...move along,” Billy said, turning away, and Steve dodged around him, staring into his face, as Billy laughed, hunching his shoulders. “...you want something from me, King Steve?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, reaching out, then yanking his hand back. “What the hell is going on?!”

“You wanna know more about me, your majesty?” Billy asked, stalking forward so their _ faces passed through each other,  _ and Steve stumbled backwards so fast he nearly fell on his ass. He caught himself in a crouch with one hand behind him, and pushed himself back up as Billy laughed his ass off. 

“Screw you,” Steve muttered, dusting himself off, but he could hardly just leave Max’s dead brother wandering the highway. “Why’re you...streetwalking?”

“...I am not doing that,” Billy snorted. “Sounds kinda unsatisfying, who’s gonna pay a ghost for a fuck?”

“What?” Steve asked, squinting, and Billy shrugged, raising his eyebrows. Steve sighed. “Jesus, I forgot what a dickhead you are.”

“Drive on, then, Harrington,” Billy waved him off, and Steve had to trot after him again as he wandered down the road. 

“Does Max know you’re out here?” he asked, and Billy snorted.

“The fuck would she care.”

“She cares,” Steve told him, stubbornly. “No idea _ why,  _ really—why’re you _ here,  _ anyway? You didn’t get _ run over—” _

“Actually, I just did,” Billy pointed out. 

“You died at Starcourt,” Steve finished, and Billy tucked his hands in his pockets again, and started walking away. “Why aren’t you—”

“What, in _ hell?”  _ Billy snarled back. “I don’t know where the _ fuck  _ I am—”

“Johnson’s Texaco’s like three minutes thattaway,” Steve pointed, and Billy cocked his head, frowning over his shoulder, then pointed hesitantly the other way. 

“...so the mall is…” 

“Yep,” Steve told him, and Billy stopped, sighing. Steve opened his mouth to talk, then closed it, and blew air into his cheeks, feeling like a frustrated chipmunk. “...I dunno if I can give you a ride,” he said after a while, and Billy snorted.

“Pretty obvious you _ can’t,”  _ he said, sitting down right there in the road. “The fuck d’you even want.”

“...come on, get out of the road, you’re gonna cause a wreck,” Steve told him, his hands passing through Billy’s arms, and Billy laughed. 

“Yeah, even _ dead  _ I’m causing problems for everyone,” he said, lying back, so he was sprawled across both sides of the road, his arms and legs outstretched. “Fuck off.”

Steve sighed, stalked back to his car, and swung it around, pulling over to the shoulder. He looked for headlights before he stepped into the road, and walked over to kick through Billy’s starfished leg. “The hell are you doing, man,” he sighed, and Billy raised one arm to flip him off. Steve crouched, considering. He’d heard a fair amount about Max and Billy from Dustin—Billy’s mom wasn’t in the picture, he gathered. “You want me to tell your dad you’re here?”

Billy sat up, glaring at him. “No, I fucking _ don’t,  _ fuck _ off,  _ leave me the _ fuck alone—” _

“Oh,” Steve said, thinking. 

“Don’t you _ dare,”  _ Billy hissed. “Only good thing about being _ dead,  _ him having nothing to say about it.”

“...oh,” said Steve, grimacing. 

“...why are you still here,” Billy sighed.

“Uh,” Steve said, thinking. “Uh, El is fine,” he said slowly, and Billy laughed.

“You think I give a shit?!”

“...I mean, you died saving her,” Steve told him, “—so yeah, kinda.”

“Got her in trouble in the first place,” Billy said, so low Steve barely heard it. “If I hadn’t gone fucking—crazy—” Steve opened his mouth to answer, and heard a car coming. He stood, frowning, and Billy scrambled to his feet and waved his hands through Steve’s torso. “Get the fuck _ out of the road,  _ Harrington—”

Steve allowed himself to be waved to the side of the road well before the truck even came around the curve and its headlights lit them up. “...how come you’re out here?” he asked again. 

“...you should go,” Billy said, following him to his car. “There’s shit out here worse than me.” 

He walked off into the woods after that, making no noise in the underbrush, and Steve couldn’t see him outside the area lit by the streetlights. 

There hadn’t been much reason to go to Starcourt, before that, but he swung by after he spent his whole shift the next day wondering whether he should tell Robin he’d met the ghost of Billy Hargrove, or be honest, and admit he was going insane. 

Billy was lying along a car-sized chunk of fallen cement, and Steve wandered closer, watching him. He looked...like a dead guy, Steve thought, he wasn’t glowing, or transparent—he was just _ there,  _ his tank top stained with dried blood and black ooze, staring up at the sky. “...Hargrove,” Steve called, and Billy sat up and glared at him. 

“You checkin’ me out?” he asked, raising his eyebrows, grinning, and then trotting over. He walked _ right up  _ to Steve again, and Steve dodged back as Billy’s face brushed through his.

“You made it back,” Steve observed, wiping his face off with a reflexive reflex, and then feeling dumb, because it wasn’t like it _ actually  _ had Billy’s brain on it. 

Billy shrugged, smirking. “The hell else am I supposed to go,” he laughed. “They didn’t _ dig me out.”  _

“Shit,” Steve agreed, raising his eyebrows, and Billy snorted, watching him. “...what’d you mean, there’s shit worse than you?”

“Fuck you very much,” Billy laughed, tensing, but he didn’t answer. His eyes raked over the parking lot, and the surrounding buildings. 

“I didn’t tell anyone you were, uh. About you,” Steve told him, and Billy barked a laugh. 

“Because _ that  _ always goes well,” he said, baring his teeth in a grin. “How come I didn’t just—just tell _ you  _ I’d lost my shit, Harrington? You’d’a put me down. Beat my fucking head in.”

“...what?” Steve asked, blinking at him.

“Before I turned into—fucking _ Zodiac  _ Killer,” Billy said flatly, his hands shaking. “What’d my body count even end up being?”

“Wait, no,” Steve held his hands up. “You—you were like, um, y’know, that movie with the little girl who pukes pea soup on a priest?”

“...you’re saying _ demons are real,”  _ Billy scoffed, but watched him warily. “...I was wondering if _ you  _ were real, and then you said dumb shit about the Exorcist, and thought I’d wanna see my _ dad—” _

“They’re...sort of real,” Steve said, biting his lip. “I mean, you weren’t...you. There was—there’s a—” he fumbled around, trying to explain, and Billy listened, waiting. “...it drove you like a car,” Steve said finally. “The uh, the car doesn’t—you couldn’t pick where to go. Right?”

“...sure what it felt like,” Billy said, clenching his fists. “I couldn’t—I could—sometimes, I could—I could go to work, or—but then I’d—” he took a deep breath, and then growled into his hands. “...I tried to call the cops,” he whispered, and Steve ran his fingers through his hair anxiously, trying to think of something to say.

“Wasn’t your fault,” he said first, and Billy snorted a laugh. “It _ wasn’t,”  _ Steve told him, and when Billy opened his mouth to argue again, Steve waved his hands wildly. “No, no, listen. Look. Okay. There’s a lab—no,” he bit his lip, thinking, and tried again. “The government started giving people these drugs, like, my mom’s age, when they were like—in college, like the seventies,” he began, and Billy listened. After a while he sat down, glowering intently between questions, and Steve sat down cross legged on the ground facing him. 

Billy didn’t have a _ ton  _ of questions, but most of the ones he _ did  _ have were about Will, and how Joyce Byers had saved him, and he stared down at his hands, licking his teeth in a fidgety way, his eyebrows raised like his brain needed the space. 

As Steve kept talking, Billy laid down, rubbing his face, but he listened to the end, staring at the sky as Steve told him about Hopper dying, and El and Will moving away. 

When the whole story was done, Steve sat and thought, watching Billy. “...so it wasn’t your fault,” he said again, and Billy laughed hoarsely, curling onto his side, towards Steve. 

“...yeah, sure,” he said, his eyes distant.

The sun was setting, the sunset bright through the fence around Starcourt Mall, and Steve wondered, in passing, whether there was anything worth stealing in there—the quarter rodeo ride, or the candy machines. 

Billy sighed, closing his eyes. There were dark circles under them, and Steve wondered, grimacing, whether the Mindflayer had let him sleep before he died. The ground looked uncomfortable as hell, but it wasn’t like he had a mattress. He was _ grimier  _ than Steve remembered, too, and it occurred to him to be glad Billy’s ghost wasn’t just having to deal with whatever broken bones he’d gotten in the wreckage. 

He looked exhausted, and filthy, his curls greasy and tangled, but he walked fine, and there weren’t—Steve thought, with a shudder—bones jutting from a crushed ribcage, or a squashed eyeball dangling from a misshapen skull. He just looked...asleep, Steve realized, as Billy curled up a little tighter, frowning, and making a little noise under his breath. 

Steve bit his lips together, watching Billy Hargrove bury his face in his arms, and flinch at the soft scrape of Steve’s shoe against the cement. Billy jerked up at nothing Steve could hear, staring blearily around, and then laid back down, squinting at Steve. “...Harrington?” he whispered, and Steve nodded. Billy nodded back, his eyes already closed.

Steve got the book Nancy had sent him from the car, and the flashlight. The paperback’s cover read _ Christine,  _ by Stephen King, and less than a chapter in, he was hugging his knees, and glancing around furtively for a pay phone to call and _ yell at Nancy.  _ She couldn’t have _ known  _ she was dooming him to read about _ haunted cars  _ while sitting in a parking lot straight out of a horror story, next to a burned out ruin, but _ still,  _ Steve thought. What the fuck.

Every time Billy would start to squirm, and mumble, Steve would hiss “Psst! Billy! S’okay,” and Billy’d jerk, and roll into a different position, his shoulders relaxing. Steve bit his lips together, feeling helpless. 

He was nearly a third into the freaky book when his heart nearly leapt out of his chest at a motion from Billy, who sat up, glaring at him. “...what the fuck,” he breathed. “What—” he glanced around, his eyes narrowed against the darkness. “What the _ fuck,  _ why—why are you—what are you _ doing?!” _

“...reading,” Steve said stubbornly, rubbing the back of his neck, and sitting his book down to stretch.

“Why are you doing it _ here,”  _ Billy asked, sounding _ pissed.  _ “Fuck off _ home,  _ Harrington—”

Steve sighed, and did, stopping as Billy ran up alongside him. “...what.”

“Just being a ghost,” Billy whispered, leaning in to brush their faces a little through each other again, and Steve staggered back, yelling. 

“Stop putting your brain on my brain,” he growled, glaring, as Billy cracked up, leaning in Steve’s car door like a prick. 

“You sure?” Billy licked his lips, and Steve rolled his eyes, and took off the parking brake to head home.

Steve took his bag of McD’s and parked in the lot of the charred ruin of Starcourt Mall. He ripped the salt packet open, sprinkled his steaming-hot fries, and watched the floaty stuff start to rain down around his car as Billy approached, his weird Upside Down atmosphere around him. Steve heard the seat settle deeper next to him, and took a bite of his burger.

“Jesus, that looks good,” Billy said, and Steve glanced over, still chewing.

“You can see it, but you can’t, like...touch it?” he asked, and Billy demonstrated, waving a hand through Steve’s fries. He was still bluish and shiny, like Barb in Steve’s pool, but still visibly _ breathing,  _ which was a weird relief. Steve watched him, until Billy licked his lips. 

“Take a picture, it lasts longer. You can jack off to it at night.”

Steve rolled his eyes, and settled back in his seat, sighing. “...you think maybe you can , uh,” Steve grimaced, “—show me where you are?”

“Right here, you blind?” Billy asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I know, dumbass,” Steve sighed again. “I mean, y’know...you.” He took another bite of his burger, after stuffing a few fries in his mouth.

“Why, you gonna throw some holy water around,” Billy shot back. “Fucking...exorcise me.”

Steve chewed slowly and swallowed, as Billy glared moodily at his dashboard. “Nah,” he said, finally, and Billy glared over warily. “I thought maybe...if you’re like...haunting your, uh,” he waved a hand at Billy, grimacing, and Billy bristled.

_ “What,”  _ he hissed.

“Thought I could like…” Steve frowned at the french fries, grabbing a handful, “—take you with me. Maybe.”

“...what,” Billy growled, his eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you—”

“Fine, jesus,” Steve said, rolling his eyes, and taking his car out of park. “Have fun haunting a burned-out mall.”

“Wait! Wait,” Billy shouted, scrambling up onto the seat. “Wait, Harrington—”

“What,” Steve asked, staring through the windshield.

“What—what are you—what the _ fuck— _ you gonna, like, drive my _ skull  _ around?”

“...I guess,” Steve said, wrinkling his nose, and putting his car back in park. “Maybe. I mean, we could—we can try and figure out where _ you  _ are, maybe—maybe I don’t need the whole thing.”

“Put my middle finger on your keychain,” Billy breathed. “That’d be _ metal.” _

Steve snickered, watching his grin. “Do you know where you are?” he asked, and Billy shivered, swallowing. He shook his head.

“I...I don’t know,” he breathed, staring at the mall through the window. “I don’t, uh,” he took a shuddery breath, and Steve wondered whether it helped. “I don’t remember too clear,” Billy whispered.

“Okay,” Steve nodded, grimacing. “Okay, uh, I’ll—I’ll bring a shovel, okay. I’ll—I’ll find you.”

Billy turned and glared at him, his eyes reddening, a little. “...why?”

“Dude,” Steve glared over, smacking his fists, holding the burger, into the steering wheel. “The hell d’you mean _ why.” _

“...I coulda killed you,” Billy said, and Steve grimaced, clearing his throat. 

“Yeah, well, then you got yourself killed saving El, okay, we’re even. They’re gonna tear that shit down,” Steve pointed with a french fry, his eyes narrowed at Billy as he chewed, and Billy’s mouth quirked. “You’re gonna end up in the dump, or something,” Steve said, throwing a french fry _ through  _ him, and Billy snorted a laugh. Steve threw another one. “You wanna _ haunt the dump,  _ asshole?!”

“Sounds like a wild night,” Billy said, holding his hands up as Steve threatened to throw another fry. “...not sure you’re gonna find much, though.”

“Oh, I will,” Steve told him.

That Friday night, Steve went back and tossed a shovel over the fence before climbing up it himself. He wandered through the ruined mall kicking wreckage until he heard Billy’s voice. 

“The hell are you gonna do, dig me up and like...throw me in a trash bag,” he asked. “I’m gonna smell like shit.”

“Oh, crap, yeah,” Steve said, stopping. “You’ve been dead what, a couple months, in the summer.” He sighed, and kept kicking rubble around. 

Billy yelled _ “Harrington, move your ass,”  _ and Steve scrambled to the side as the charred, twisted metal he’d kicked collapsed, and he _ ran,  _ stumbling into where the roof had already fallen. He dropped to a crouch, panting, as Billy’s bluish hands waved through him. 

“Shit, Harrington,” he whispered.

“...I can’t figure out where the dome was, even,” Steve groaned, stretching. “Come on, work at it a little.”

“You’re still _ trying?!”  _ Billy panted, staring at him in the dim evening light, as Steve coughed cement dust, perched unsteadily on rubble.

Steve sighed, steadying himself on a rusty hunk of exposed rebar. “Yeah, shithead, I’m _ still trying.” _

“Fuck,” Billy whispered, frowning around. “Look, go—go back. I’ll try to find it, okay, it’s—it’s a fucking deathtrap here, in the dark.”

“I can’t dig during the _ day,”  _ Steve reminded him, rolling his eyes. 

“You can get the fuck out of here,” Billy hissed. “Go home and fuck that bitch Wheeler, I’ll _ find it,  _ jesus—”

“Euuugh,” Steve groaned, but he let Billy lead him out, squinting after the slightly darker shape outlined by the traffic lights. He tripped once, and Billy was half through him, waving his hands at Steve’s, before they both remembered the whole reason they were there, and Billy turned away, taking a deep breath. “...it’s okay, man,” Steve said, and then felt like an idiot, because it really wasn’t.

“...are you bleeding from anywhere?” Billy asked hoarsely, and Steve was the one who reached out that time, and then muttered angrily to himself.

Steve went home and called the Byers’, said hello absently to Jonathan, and asked for Joyce. “Um,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Uh, I know this—sucks—but I need to ask some questions.”

When he came back after work the next day, Billy walked to meet him, right through the fence, and then shoved his face through Steve’s _ face, again,  _ as Steve reflexively tried to shove him away. “I can’t find it,” Billy said, running his hands through his hair, and Steve watched, fascinated, as it stayed messy. Billy looked thinner, too, he thought, and he stumbled for no reason on the even ground. “My _ fucking corpse.” _

“...you looked under the dome?” Steve asked, swallowing, his brain running like a hamster wheel. “Nothing there?”

“I _ looked,”  _ Billy groaned, spinning to look back at the mall. He looked a little frenzied. “I’ve done nothing _ but  _ look—”

“Okay, okay, just— _ can  _ you sit down?” Steve asked, waving his hands helplessly. 

“I don’t need to fucking _ sit down,”  _ Billy snarled at him. “Dead people don’t _ sit down.” _

“Yeah,” Steve said, cataloguing the circles under Billy’s eyes, and his shaking hands. “...Billy,” he said slowly, then bit his lips together.

“What,” Billy sighed, tiredly.

“...d’you get hungry?”

“I’m always _ fucking  _ hungry,” Billy laughed harshly. “Maybe it’s the Mindflayer. Maybe I’m turning into some—some _ hungry thing— _ I’ll probably—”

“It’s not the Mindflayer,” Steve said quickly, and Billy snorted and sighed, his momentum gone. He rubbed his face, and swayed, and Steve reached for him again, then clenched his fingers in a fist. “Billy. You’re not the Mindflayer.”

“What if you take my _ rotting corpse  _ home and I go crazy and kill you,” Billy laughed, unevenly. “Braaaaains.”

“...I’m taking you with me,” Steve said, stubbornly, and Billy’s mouth quirked. 

“...sounds like a shitty idea,” he said, but he smiled, a little. The patch of Upside Down that followed him around buckled the pavement, a little, and Steve watched him stumble again.

“Has anyone else seen you?” he asked, and Billy snorted, shaking his head. 

“Nobody comes here.”

Steve nodded, and then bit his lip, watching Billy yank at a tear in the knee of his jeans. He looked dirtier, too, but less bloody than the first time Steve had seen him standing in the parking lot of Starcourt Mall, and there were other differences, like his nails, torn now, when before they’d been getting a little long. 

It was hard to feel _ hopeful,  _ exactly, looking at exhausted, bloodied Billy Hargrove, but the thought of Max’s tears sent him running back to his car. After rooting through his trunk and glove compartment, the floor under the driver’s seat yielded the flashlight. He returned to find Billy standing in the chainlink fence.

He was just standing there, his arms crossed, but his head jerked up as Steve crunched across the rubble. 

“Harrington,” he said. “You didn’t leave.”

“Sorry, I needed something,” Steve said, taking a deep breath, and he held out the flashlight.

Billy raised his eyebrows. “You want me to break your flashlight? I’m just gonna drop it—”

“No, touch it,” Steve said, keeping his breathing steady as he chewed his lip, and tried not to telegraph to Billy that something _ important  _ was happening. Billy looked at him for a long second, then waved his hand through the flashlight.

It flicked on and off.

Steve bit back a loud whoop, but he couldn’t help smiling, his heart rate kicking up with the urgency.

“...hey,” Billy said, waving his hand through it again. “...d’you think it’s using me up?”

Steve yanked it away, glaring at him. “Why the fuck would you say that?!”

“Maybe I can jumpstart cars,” Billy snickered, sighing. “M—”

“I’m sorry,” Steve told him, truthfully, “I really have to go.”

“...yeah, okay,” Billy nodded, crossing his arms, and smiling sarcastically. “Fine.”

Steve drove clear to Chicago that night, taking a deep breath before he got out of the car. He banged on the door, heard shouting inside, and then both Joyce and El squinted out at him, one over, one under the security chain. They looked at each other, and opened the door.

“Billy’s alive,” Steve panted, having run up the flights of stairs to their apartment. “I, um, I think. Like Will. Billy, um, Billy Hargrove, I think he’s alive. He’s in the Underneath.”

“...the Upside Down,” Will said, white-faced, and Steve pointed at him, nodding.

“There, he’s there. We—we have to get him out.”

Jonathan was frowning hard at him, and Steve waved the flashlight. “He—he turned it on! Like Will! And he’s changing—he’s getting...he’s skinny, he’s tired,” he said, sighing as he lost momentum, thinking of Billy’s face as Steve walked away after a five minute visit, his first in two days. “...he looks so tired,” he repeated. “You—you gotta open a gate. We have to save him.”

Jonathan sat down at the table, opening his mouth, but Joyce cut him off.

“We went in with the lab’s equipment before—”

“No, Nancy went in by my house,” Steve told them, sitting down, and folding his hands together to keep them busy. “To look for Barb. She couldn’t—she didn’t find her, not in time. You have to make me a gate—”

“What do you mean he _ looks tired,”  _ Jonathan asked, frowning around, and Steve blinked. 

“He...he has circles under his eyes, it—y’know, it almost looks bruised,” he waved his hand around his eyes, wondering why the hell Jonathan’’d never seen anyone exhausted before.

“You can _ see  _ him,” Jonathan said slowly, watching Steve’s face, and he nodded. 

“...the Mindflayer came through at the Mall,” El said, squinting at him. “Maybe there’s a gate there.”

“It looks like the Underdown around him,” Steve reported. “That flakey stuff? And he kind of makes a noise. But he can’t touch things.”

“...Upside down,” Will repeated, frowning harder. 

“Sounds like you would need a gate,” Joyce said, grimly, and Steve nodded frantically. 

“I need to get him out,” he said again, and El sat back in her chair, thinking.

“...it’s not like...here,” she said quietly. “It might be difficult to get through—”

“He’s just—he’s _ right there,  _ he’s just at the _ mall,”  _ Steve shouted at her, and jerked back, waving his hand, “—sorry, I’m sorry—sorry—”

“Good thing it’s summer,” Joyce said, grabbing her purse, and Steve’s voice cracked as he laughed with relief. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve knows he should be spending every minute he has getting Billy out of the Upside Down, but also...they both need rest. It's absolutely not just that he...wants to spend more time...with Billy.
> 
> _  
> **TUMBLR PEOPLE:**  
>  _There are scenes in the last chapter that weren't in the first piece I posted on Tumblr! The last few scenes, and probably some other differences! Sorry! XD;;;_  
>  _

“...if I open a gate at the mall, the Mindflayer might notice me,” El said, as they drove, the lights from oncoming cars flashing over her face like an old noir movie. “It, uh, it might…”

“Actually kill him,” Steve hissed, clenching his hands on the steering wheel. “What about by my house? There was—” he lost his voice, for a second, remembering Barbra Holland’s body in the pool, and cleared his throat. “There was one...there.”

“We can try,” Eleven said, nodding. She set her jaw.

Will couldn’t stop shaking, and Steve found the key to his parent’s house, and let him in to perch nervously on the couch. They left him with the phone in his hand to call Nancy, if he needed to, and ask her to bring her gun. Jonathan and Steve got into the liquor cabinet and made molotov cocktails, and El tested the weight of a few golf clubs.

Joyce just stuffed a bag full of blankets, oreos, and flashlight batteries, and strode along with them. They tied handkerchiefs over their faces, and Steve gave Joyce his aluminum bat.

The gate in the tree _did_ open, and Steve let out a breath he didn’t even know he’d been holding. Eleven stumbled through, with Steve, Joyce, and Jonathan scrambling after her, and they walked for hours in the gray light. The roots and vines covered broken buildings and cars, one a crashed _semi_ across the road in a mass of collapsed road sign. Off in the darkness, Steve could hear the purring of a demo-thingy, and so they climbed silently.

The wreckage across the road meant trailblazing through the stunted, overgrown forest to get around, and soon it was morning, and Eleven was asleep on her feet. Joyce hauled Steve back by the _ear,_ nearly. “We can try again,” she said, as he stood in the driveway of his house, trying to have no reaction at all. “We can try again tomorrow.” 

The next morning, while Eleven slept, Steve called in sick to work, and went to the music store. He bought _Rolling Stone, Creem, Downbeat,_ and _Rock Scene,_ and grabbed three new cassettes from a guy at the record shop. Steve had no idea what to ask for, so he set his jaw and hummed songs he’d heard playing in Billy’s car, and the guy handed him some things that sounded about right. 

“Billy,” he yelled, when he got there, and he didn’t hear anything, so he hopped up on the chain link fence. He had one leg over when Billy walked out, and Billy frowned up at him for a long second as Steve swung back down.

“...nothing to report,” Billy said, laughing shortly. He looked even more exhausted, and Steve set his jaw. 

“Okay,” Steve told him, nodding. “Come take a break.”

“I don’t need a _break,”_ Billy sighed, but he followed when Steve beckoned him back to the car. 

“Is there anything you _can_ touch?” Steve asked, and Billy glared at him. 

“Oh yeah, sure, I play fucking _touch football,_ fucknuts—” he hissed, and Steve shook his head, thinking. 

“You can sit in my car, though.”

“Oh,” said Billy, and he stumbled over to it, only to reach through. He went still, closing his eyes. “...this is _fucking pointless,”_ he said. “Trying to find my body. Look,” he laughed, waving his hand through Steve’s hood. “I’m fading away, I’ll be gone—great, you’re done—I’m _fucking finished finally,_ I’m _disappearing—”_

“You’re not _fucking disappearing,”_ Steve told him sharply, glaring over. “I just parked in the wrong spot, jesus.”

“...what the hell does that mean?” Billy asked, watching Steve climb back in and start the car. 

Steve pulled back and then into the spot he usually parked—where he suspected, watching Billy, there was something he could sit on in the Upside Down. Billy edged closer and dropped into the seat next to Steve, taking shuddery breaths. 

“You—you knew that would happen,” he whispered, into his cupped fingers. “The hell is going on, Harrington—” Steve bit his lip, wondering how to explain. Whether it was _worth_ explaining that Billy was starving to death, and there were monsters, and Steve might not be able to make it in time to help.

“Holy shit,” Billy said, and Steve glanced at him. He was staring at the magazines Steve’d grabbed off the seat. _“You_ read _Rolling Stone,”_ he said, sounding considerably more doubtful, and insulting, and like himself.

“Screw you,” Steve said easily, smiling. “I got these, too—” he held up the cassette tapes, and Billy reached for them, grinning, before yanking his hand back. 

“Wait, no, shit,” he said, frowning. “I’ve heard about this, is it just a movie thing? Ghosts wiping tapes?”

“What?” Steve blinked at him.

“I can’t hold it anyway,” Billy sighed. “...shit.”

“No, come on, pick one,” Steve said, holding them up, and Billy narrowed his eyes. “Piiiiiick oooooone,” Steve drew it out, waving them around, and Billy finally huffed a laugh, and pointed at Slayer’s _Haunting the Chapel,_ his mouth quirked. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, shrugging. “It was new, and it’s about you, I guess.” He grinned as Billy’s elbow passed through his side.

“Where’d you get this stuff?” Billy asked, quietly, his eyes widening as Steve popped the cassette into his dash, and then turned the volume up. “You don’t listen to this shit.”

“You do,” Steve said, shrugging, and ignoring Billy’s tense stare. “Which magazine you wanna read?” 

“Shut up, I wanna hear this music that came out after I died,” Billy said, but he was grinning a little, and he reached over to pick through the magazines, forgetting again. Steve shuffled them for him, and Billy drew his legs up as they settled next to each other, as Steve let him read through the articles, and Billy argued with the music criticism in offended tones. 

Steve had had other girlfriends, before Nancy, and watching Billy gesture as he talked reminded him of sitting on the couch with one of their dads, who listened to cricket matches on the radio. Steve hadn’t been able to make heads or tails of cricket, and he wasn’t gonna follow Billy’s rant about the serial story in Rolling Stone—but he could cheer and curse at the right points.

By the time Billy ran out of breath, he was looking pinker than he had in awhile, and laughing. “You don’t give a shit about any of this,” he said, and Steve shrugged. “How come you brought all this?” Billy asked, his mouth quirked. “You giving up on me?”

Steve stared at him, then shut his mouth, glaring. “N-no! I haven’t been _around_ much, you asshole, I thought you might be, like…” _lonely,_ his brain supplied. “Bored,” he said.

“...you want me to keep looking?” Billy asked, keeping his eyes on the magazine between them, but Steve could tell he wasn’t really reading it. 

“Billy,” Steve started, and Billy clenched his jaw, nodding. “No, Billy,” Steve hissed, waving a hand through his head. “Is—are you, um,” he tried to think of a way to phrase it. Billy looked over, slumped against the seat, more tired than he’d been when Steve arrived. “Is there anything else here? Have you seen any—anything—scary,” he asked, grimacing, but avoiding the word _monsters._

“...fuck does that mean,” Billy asked, glaring over. “What—have _you_ seen something? Do—” he glanced around outside, narrow-eyed. 

“No, no, shit,” Steve tried to pat his shoulder, and waved through him again. “Crap. Yeah, I still _want_ you, jesus—I wanna take you _home,_ get you out of here—”

Billy’s mouth dropped open a little, and his cheeks flushed, so he looked less blue and dead. 

Steve waved the magazine at him, to do _something_ instead of the weird urge to grab Billy’s shoulder. “This isn’t _goodbye,_ jesus,” he huffed. “I’m not _leaving._ I just—I thought maybe you needed—y’know,” he sighed. “A break.”

Billy laughed, flashing a grin at him, and Steve bit his lips, wondering whether to _tell_ Billy—that he wasn’t dead, that he was _dying—_ and that Steve might still not be able to help. Billy was even thinner, he thought, which was probably his imagination, since he’d seen him the day before. He’d get some granola bars, and canned soup, he thought, and a can opener, so Billy could eat first thing.

Steve sighed, listening to Billy talk about Prince, and listening to Slayer. When Billy paused, Steve said “I’ll come by after work tomorrow.”

“Wait for me at the edge,” Billy told him. “No point in you dying too.”

“I’ll get you out of here,” Steve promised. “I will.”

Billy laughed, gripping the seat—and this close, Steve could see he was gripping something an inch or so off, something in the Upside Down. Probably a car that had been parked here, maybe one that got wrecked in the fire. 

“You just gonna...keep me around?” Billy asked, smiling. “You _want_ me hiding in your room, Harrington? I’m gonna watch you sleep.”

 _No, you won’t,_ Steve thought, then remembered he should be creeped out, and laughed. “Hey, you wanna see me bone down, go right ahead. Free porn.”

Billy stared at him for a second, then blinked rapidly, and cleared his throat. “...I have pretty good range,” he said, swallowing, like his throat was dry. “...probably don’t need to see that kinda shit.”

“You can pick out your own albums, then,” Steve offered, because it was true, and he didn’t know what he’d said to ruin the mood. 

“...you still gonna listen with me?” Billy asked, laughing, but he side-eyed Steve, who wasn’t sure what the correct answer was.

“...if I’m not around, who’re you gonna yell at the reviews to,” he said finally, which was apparently the correct answer, because Billy’s shoulders relaxed a little, and he smirked.

“I haveta teach you about decent music, Harrington,” he said, and then he leaned out of the car, his body passing through the door, and sat back up with what looked like a waterlogged movie ticket. “...never even went to a movie here,” he said quietly, and Steve clenched his hands into fists. 

“...we can go see movies,” he said, “—if you want. There’s even a drive-through off the highway.” Billy nodded, quirking his mouth, and Steve reached out, curious, to touch the ticket, but as he’d thought, his hand passed through it the way Billy’s did the magazines. “Billy. What’s—what do you see, here? D’you see the fence and everything? What’s it look like?”

Billy grinned. “I see Hell. What’s it say about you, Harrington, if I can talk to you in Hell?”

Steve rolled his eyes. “You’re not—tell me what’s around. What about the road, is it clear?” 

“The fuck are you talking about,” Billy asked, glaring at him, and Steve climbed out of the car. 

“Come on,” he said, “Show me how you got to the road.”

“...I don’t…” Billy trailed off, but followed, and as they walked he spun around, walking backwards, keeping an eye out, and then he stumbled to a stop, waving a hand through Steve’s shoulder. “Your _fucking car’s_ gone,” he said, running back towards it, and Steve, who could see his car just fine, sighed. 

“It’s fine!” he yelled. “Billy! It’s okay.” 

Billy stopped, panting. He swayed a little, and Steve walked over, waving him closer, and doing the math on how long Billy had been in the Upside Down. According to the Byers, Will hadn’t really _needed_ to eat or drink much, but he’d still emerged half-dead. “It’s okay, I can see it,” Steve told Billy, who jerked around to stare back at Steve’s car. “What d’you see?”

“...some wreck,” Billy said, turning his frown on Steve. 

“That’s what you’ve been sitting on,” Steve told him, eyeing their surroundings, as shown by the patch of Upside Down that hovered around Billy. “Where I’m standing probably looks...cleaner to you,” Steve said, and Billy snorted.

“Fuck you, prep school,” he said, and Steve snorted a laugh. 

“Do you come this way much?” Steve asked, and Billy shrugged. 

He kicked a rock, putting his hands in his pockets, and shivered. “...sometimes. Walking in front of cars doesn’t work, either.”

Steve stopped, staring at him. “...Hargrove,” he said, then stopped, since he had _no idea_ how to respond to something like that.

“...don’t look at me like that,” Billy laughed, looking away. “S’not so bad. Don’t have to...listen to my dad anymore.”

“...shit,” Steve whispered, then turned to face him. “I need you to help me find a clear road in,” he told Billy who kinda cocked his head and squinted, and then, “—and I—” Steve bit his lips, then took a deep breath. “You gotta promise me something, okay? Wait here.”

Billy raised his eyebrows, glancing down at the parking spot they were standing in, and Steve tried to grab his shoulders, and passed through. Billy snickered. 

“Here at the mall,” Steve told him, setting his jaw. “Billy. Don’t—don’t get _hurt._ And wait here for me. Can you do that?”

“...what’s in it for me?” Billy asked, his eyes focusing on Steve’s mouth.

“What do you _want?”_ Steve asked, and Billy shrugged.

“I’m _dead,_ numbnuts—”

“You can still want things,” Steve argued, and Billy stared into his face and gave an uneven laugh, sniffling kinda wetly. Steve wanted to _shake_ him, but he kept his voice calm. _“Hargrove._ More music?”

“...you gonna keep bringing me music?” Billy asked, laughing again. He sounded a little hysterical, Steve thought, and he held his hand around where Billy’s shoulder was, even if he couldn’t touch it. 

“Yeah. Yeah, anything you want,” Steve told him. “You promise?”

Billy shrugged, and rubbed his arm across his eyes, nodding. “I guess.”

“I will get you out of here,” Steve told him, and Billy’s mouth quirked. 

“Haven’t been trying to find my body as much,” he said, “—lately.”

“I’m working on something,” Steve told him, and Billy squinted. 

“What, like a _backhoe?”_ Billy scoffed. “That’s gonna look great, you demolishing this whole ruin, and then you’re hauling a _rotting corpse_ out. Did I mention the corpse is a _serial killer.”_

“You’re not a _serial killer—”_ Steve argued, trying not to laugh.

“The hell am I supposed to do?!” Billy cackled, leaning against a streetlamp, then blinking at it over his shoulder. “When the police show up? ‘Oh, _officer,’”_ he called in a sultry voice, swinging his hips out, and holding the light pole above his head. Steve’s face flushed as he laughed. “‘Take me _instead, officer,’”_ Billy moaned, licking his lips, and Steve burst into snickers. 

Billy watched him, grinning. “Mmm,” he moaned theatrically, “Put the handcuffs on me, officer, I’m _so, so_ guilty.”

“That’s not the plan,” Steve told him, his laughter fading as he watched Billy lick his chapped lips again, and wondered when he’d last had _water._ “...Hargrove,” he said, seriously, and Billy giggled, grinning over at him. Steve opened his mouth, considered, and said “...can you trust me?”

“...sure,” Billy shrugged, still smiling. “Haven’t got anywhere else to be—”

“Okay, walk around with me,” Steve told him, trying to grab his arm, and Billy laughed, but followed. 

The picture Billy described wasn’t encouraging. There was a reason he’d walked off into the woods, from the road, and Steve finally dug his crumpled school notebooks out, and they made maps. 

“Hey,” Billy said, surveying them. “Could you tell Max I’m sorry?”

“I can bring her out,” Steve offered, and Billy grimaced. 

“...nah,” he said quietly. “Just...tell her. She’s not gonna wanna see me.”

“Of course she _fucking_ wants to see you,” Steve hissed, reaching for him, and Billy grinned as Steve’s hand passed through his arm, like the dick he was. “She _misses_ you.” Billy’s grin widened, and Steve scrambled backwards, knowing what was coming, but sure enough Billy mashed their faces together. “The hell do you keep _doing_ that,” Steve hissed.

“Who cares,” Billy said, putting his hand through Steve’s on the trunk of the car. “I’m dead, dumbass.”

“...I’m gonna get you out of here,” Steve told him again, and Billy snorted, but smiled.

When they’d basically gotten a map together, he lingered around, but didn’t get back in the car. “...you look tired as hell, man,” he told Steve, studying his face from suspiciously close range, as Steve scowled at him. His eyes were red and bloodshot from lack of sleep, and Steve reminded himself to come by again, and read, and keep watch while Billy slept. Billy cleared his throat. “...there’s something going on, right? Some weird Hawkins shit.”

Steve bit his lip. “...just trying to take you home,” he said, and Billy stepped even closer, frowning. If he’d been _normal,_ Steve could have felt his breath, and the thought made him nervous as hell, for some stupid reason. He took a deep breath, and wished his heart would stop pounding. 

“Don’t get yourself eaten by demon dogs or whatever,” Billy told him, and Steve glanced down at the motion of Billy’s hand passing through his own. “Who’m’I gonna talk to? I’ll go fucking nuts. It’ll be a whole ‘nother horror movie, Harrington.”

“I’m not leaving you here alone,” Steve said again. 

“Okay,” Billy said, his eyes narrowed as he studied Steve’s face. “You look like you haven’t slept either.”

“I actually...need to go,” Steve told him, biting his lips. “I’ll, uh, I’ll come back tonight, okay? By tonight, at least.”

“Okay,” Billy said softly, and Steve felt a wild urge to mash their faces together, symbolically, and stalked off to his car, his face feverishly warm. 

He backed out of the parking space and through Billy, and gritted his teeth, thinking he’d have to make sure Billy _stopped getting run over_ once he was out of the Upside Down. 

When he made it back, El was awake, and the war council had convened around the table in his apartment. 

“I think we should try once more from the gate by Steve’s parent’s house,” said Joyce. “The Mindflayer hasn’t noticed, has it?”

“We’ll know when we walk in,” El said grimly, and Jonathan and Steve exchanged glances. Jonathan nodded.

“I got him to help with some maps,” Steve told them, rubbing his face, and wishing he’d gotten more than a few hours of sleep. _I’ll sleep with Billy,_ he told his tired body, and then grimaced, because that thought hadn’t...quite come out right. 

El and Joyce studied the maps, and Steve sat down for a minute, and then they were shaking him awake, and driving back to the gate. 

The path Billy had outlined was circuitous, and a long way to the mall, and Steve wondered whether he’d used it. It was weird to imagine Billy walking all that way, and standing outside his old house, or wandering through it. Steve hadn’t thought to mention he’d moved to an apartment, and Billy hadn’t said a word, but Steve wondered whether he’d...tried to find him, and if he had, _why._

They were near Johnson’s Texaco when Joyce saw the demogorgon. She grabbed Jonathan and El, and El grabbed Steve, and they waited, crouched in the ruins of the building for nearly fifteen minutes, watching it wander around. 

“We have to go back,” Joyce whispered, her fingers white-knuckled on her kid’s shoulders. 

“We can’t, we’re nearly there,” Steve whispered back, gripping his bat. 

“We can’t save him if we’re dead,” Jonathan said, grimacing, and Joyce stood up and turned to look behind them. As they crept back out and along the road, El stumbled and nearly fell, and Steve caught her around the stomach as she gave a muted _oof._

The demogorgon _shrieked,_ echoing through the woods.

They all turned and _ran,_ giving up on stealth, and Steve heard crashing in the woods around them, and ahead of them. He and Jonathan closed around Joyce and El.

“Protect the mage,” Jonathan said softly, whatever _that_ meant, and Joyce smothered a high shaky laugh. El looked determined, but Steve remembered the junkyard, and had a suspicion that turned out to be right as they ran into the clearing with the gate.

It was surrounded by demodogs, and another demogorgon. 

“Get to the gate!” Steve yelled, and Jonathan threw a molotov cocktail at the biggest group between them and the shimmering wrongness that led to their world. Steve smacked a leaping one away from Eleven, Joyce whacked one creeping up on Jonathan’s flank, and El _screamed,_ blasting them back as she stumbled, already exhausted. 

The demogorgon waded through the demodogs, kicking them aside, one of its feet crushing the one Steve had just smacked away. The dying one writhed, wailing.

Steve held the line while Joyce and Jonathan drug El through, and then scrambled through, slamming the bat down on the one gripping his shoe. Jonathan threw more molotov cocktails through, and El growled with effort, her arms shaking as she yanked the gate closed on the demogorgon’s outstretched arm, and it fell limp, dangling from the bark of the tree.

“You can’t _close_ it,” Steve whispered, his eyes blurring. “He’s still _in_ there, you can’t—”

Joyce squeezed his arm, and he yanked away, but Jonathan blocked him. “El said there’s one at the mall,” he said. “Steve. We drew them off, probably. He’s probably _safer.”_

Steve nodded, wiping his eyes, and trying to steady his breath, as El slowly dropped to sit like her legs had stopped being able to hold her up. “I—I—sorry,” Steve told them. “I’ll take you to—my place.”

He dropped them off, handing Joyce his key, and drove to the mall. “Billy!” he yelled, stalking towards the fence. “Billy!” 

Billy wandered out, smiling, and then jogged up to him, wide-eyed. “Fuck, what happened?!” he asked, and looking where he looked, Steve registered his jacket was torn and bloodied, his pants were ripped, and when Billy brushed a hand through his cheek, Steve did the same, and it came away sticky with blood. 

“Oh,” he said, frowning.

“What happened,” Billy said, paler even than usual, if that was possible. 

“Just...monsters,” Steve told him, shrugging, and Billy tried to shake _him._ Steve laughed. “I came to...sleep,” he said. “I think I’m gonna fall asleep, I can’t keep watch for you, sorry.”

“What,” Billy whispered, cupping his face with hands Steve couldn’t feel. 

“So you can sleep too,” Steve told him.

“Is that what you were doing?” Billy asked, laughing in disbelief. He mashed their faces together again, and Steve let him, closing his eyes—but with his eyes closed, Billy was gone. Steve drew in a deep breath, but he couldn’t smell him, or feel him, and his eyes stung again. “Harrington,” Billy breathed, and Steve opened his eyes, feeling like his eyes and throat were full of tears. He swallowed hard. “Jesus, Harrington,” Billy breathed. “...you don’t need to care so much.”

“I don’t,” Steve lied, wiping his eyes, and trying to stop sounding like he was gonna cry. 

“...yeah, okay,” Billy told him, grinning, but kinda softly, so Steve didn’t mind so much. “...let’s get you home, okay?”

“I’m gonna sleep here,” Steve told him, and Billy laughed aloud.

“Go home to bed,” he whispered, and Steve shook his head stubbornly. 

“Come on, sit in the car with me. We’ll take a nap,” he said, brushing his fingers through Billy’s. Billy ran to keep his fingers there as Steve stalked off, and Steve felt shaky, again, like he was coming to the top of a roller coaster, and knew it was about to swerve him upside down. 

He hoped the thought wasn’t an omen, and squeezed his fist where Billy’s hand was, yanking the door of his car open as Billy walked around. They settled next to each other—Billy _really_ close, his feet on the dash, and Steve wondered whether he was cold. “Sorry I can’t give you a coat,” he whispered, feeling like they were having a slumber party. 

“I’m dead,” Billy said, laughing, and Steve set his jaw.

“You’re _right here,”_ he told him. “You’re _here.”_

“...yeah,” Billy said, watching him from an inch away, with a kinda smug grin. “That alive enough for you, pretty boy?”

“Yeah, it is,” Steve shot back. “You’re—you’re _here.”_

“...and you’re gonna take me home,” Billy said softly, and for the first time Steve felt a pang about that, imagining him _actually_ taking Billy to his apartment. Imagining Billy wanting to be there. “...and you’re gonna take me to the movies. Right?”

“Yeah,” Steve breathed. “I’m gonna take you anywhere you wanna go.”

His eyes closed, despite his efforts, on Billy’s fingers brushing through his face, and it was completely dark when he opened them again at Billy’s voice, muttering as he squirmed around. “...s’okay, Billy,” Steve told him, and Billy’s eyes flickered open, his face a little less bluish under the yellow streetlights. 

“...mmmn,” he said, scooting closer, and letting his head rest half in Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve sighed. “Gonna be okay,” he whispered.

He woke and checked his watch, and it was four o’clock in the morning. Billy was snoozing next to him, his hands through Steve’s thigh under Steve’s hands. Steve bit his lips, then settled in to wait. Maybe Billy’d still want to catch a movie, he thought, glancing at him. 

Once Billy got to—restart his life, he might still want...friends. It was worth _asking,_ Steve told himself, even once Billy knew there were other options, like getting a job to pay for a plane ticket back to California. 

The sky was just starting to turn yellow and pink as Billy growled, falling half through Steve, and then scrambled back, rubbing his face. “Morning, sunshine,” he mumbled, and Steve laughed. 

“Sorry I can’t take you to breakfast,” Steve said, watching the dawn break, and Billy smiled, hugging his knees. 

“Don’t even talk about food,” he sighed, laying his hand on the parking brake between them, and Steve put his through it. They sat there for a long while, watching the colors, still half-asleep, and then Billy took a deep breath. “I, um,” he said, his voice cracking. “I—could you tell Max? After—after all. See if—maybe she’d want to see me.”

“Yeah, of course,” Steve squeezed the parking brake, and felt like a dingus. “I’ll bring her.”

“She won’t want to come,” Billy laughed, and it looked like he squeezed the parking brake back, and Steve nearly giggled, because they were both _dumb,_ but he’d...miss this, however uncomfortable it was. 

He took a deep breath of the already-humid morning air, and the smell of the burned-out mall. “You wanna pick some good sunrise watching music,” he asked, and they put on David Bowie, and listened with their heads nearly touching, through realities.

“I was gonna tell you a ghost story last night,” Billy said suddenly, and Steve snorted a laugh. “I _was,”_ he huffed. “In the dark. Y’know. Since you were wandering around out there. Looking for a body.”

“Sorry I fell asleep,” Steve snickered. “You’re just not very scary, I guess.”

“I’m scary as _shit,”_ Billy hissed, then _reddened_ at Steve’s giggling. “...fuck off, Harrington,” he muttered. 

“You wanna tell me your ghost story now?” Steve asked, checking his watch—he both wanted to get back, and didn’t want to leave Billy, after last night’s reminder of what would happen if Billy was found by anything other than Steve.

“Can’t tell a _ghost story_ at _sunrise,”_ Billy scoffed, and Steve giggled harder, the most he’d laughed in days. He had to wipe his eyes, he was laughing so hard, and Billy reddened further. 

“You _could,”_ Steve argued, covering another bout of snickering at Billy’s annoyed expression. He turned to tell Billy to just tell him the damn story, right into Billy’s face as he leaned closer, and then Billy got up through the roof and walked off.

“I’ll wait until you _have_ got my big toe,” he called back. “Gotta go find it so you can take me home.”

“Don’t get hurt, looking,” Steve called after him. “Stay safe!” Billy waved, and Steve ran after him, and stopped at the fence. “I mean it!” he yelled. “I’m bringing Max! Don’t make me come in there and find you squished!”

“I can’t get _squished,_ Harrington,” Billy called back, without turning around. 

“There’s stuff you can touch,” Steve reminded him. “And keep your voice down!” He could hear Billy’s voice swearing as he walked off. 

He drove to a pay phone, and called Dustin. “Hey,” he said, when Dustin’s mom relinquished the phone, “—d’you know whether Max is home? I need to talk to her, and I don’t wanna talk to her dad.”

“...I can have her come over,” Dustin said, “—you can tell _both_ of us—”

“This is about Billy, it’s just for Max,” Steve told him, and Dustin groaned. Steve grinned, imagining his face _burning_ with curiosity, but he agreed to tell Max to sneak out. Steve waited for her two blocks down, popping the trunk for her bike. He was still trying to figure out what to say.

“S’up,” she said, dropping into his passenger seat, and glaring through the windshield. 

“Billy’s in the Upside Down,” he said bluntly, and she swiveled to _stare_ at him.

“Wha—no, he—he’s—” she garbled, swallowed, and bit back _something_ as her eyes went wide and wet. “He’s alive?” she asked, sounding choked.

“We’re going to get him right now,” Steve told her, and she started shaking with sobs before she even made any noise. Big tears rolled down her cheeks, and Steve pulled into traffic. 

“Holy _sh-shitballs,”_ she whispered into her hands, trying to swallow down the noises her lungs wanted to make, and sniffling hard.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will they make it in time? Will Billy _murder Steve_ when he finds out what's going on? Stay tuned! XD
> 
> Sorry it's four chapters now--I'll still post the last on the tenth as planned, tomorrow!

Eleven, Joyce, and Jonathan were gathered around Steve’s table, and Nancy was there, looking fierce. She was cleaning her gun. Joyce shot Steve a faintly judgemental look when he showed up with another actual child, but Max threw her arms around El, bawling into her shoulder. Will hugged them both, and then _ Joyce  _ did, and Steve rolled his eyes and went to at least brush his teeth and hair. Nancy shot a smile at Steve, and he sighed, grinning back.

They drove to the mall in separate cars, so there’d be room for Billy, and El had Steve stop a couple blocks away. She clambered out in such a hurry she almost fell over the curb, glaring into the middle distance.

She set her jaw, and spread her arms wide. Max gripped the tire iron she’d snagged from his trunk, Jonathan readied his lighter and a molotov cocktail, and Nancy aimed her gun above Eleven’s head. 

It opened on an empty overgrown road, and Joyce heaved an audible sigh of relief. Steve leaned in and whispered ‘thanks’ as he ducked by, wondering how Joyce Byers felt, taking a whole posse of kids into the Upside Down to rescue another one. Her knuckles were white on Steve’s bat.

Max glared around wide-eyed, opening her mouth to yell, and El clapped a hand over her mouth. “Everyone sssh,” El said, and they walked on as silently as they could towards the mall. 

It looked like the fire had spread, here. There were half-skeletonized demodogs, and even two blocks away, the buildings were charred wrecks, covered in char instead of vines. Steve wondered if that was how Billy’d survived—the Mindflayer had nothing to return for. The thought made him break into a run, and Jonathan grabbed his arm, yanking him back. 

Joyce held her finger over her mouth, shushing him, and Steve would have told anyone else to fuck themselves, but her red-rimmed, teary eyes told him she understood. He nodded, but waved them to walk faster, trying to weave as speedily as possible around the louder-looking rubble piles and fallen leaves. 

They had a scare for a moment, a demodog on the remains of one of the buildings next to the mall, but it jumped down and ran off. After gripping bruises onto each other’s wrists and shoulders, they dared to breathe.

Billy wasn’t out front, and Steve’s breath caught again. He ran forward, quiet and careful in his gym sneakers, by the rusted shell of a BMW in the spot he usually parked, and through where the fence was, in the world he was bringing Billy back to.

“Billy,” he called, softly, maneuvering through the tilted, shifting rubble towards the dome. “Hargrove!”

He could hear the rest of them picking through the rusty rebar and chunks of cement, but he kept his eyes front for Billy, and climbed over a pile of wreckage nearly a story high. He saw Billy using a chunk of rebar to try and shift a massive chunk of balcony that had fallen to the mostly-clear floor under what had been the dome. 

“Billy,” Steve called again, skating down on sliding pieces of debris, and Billy stood up straight and turned around. 

“...I didn’t hear your car,” he said, trotting to meet Steve, and going for the weird face brush, which turned out to be a hard _ kiss.  _ Steve stumbled to a stop in his arms, with Billy’s warm lips pressed against his. He smelled like _ rot,  _ char, six weeks of old sweat, and the blood and black gunk dried all over him, and Steve leaned into it, taking a deep, shaky breath.

Billy froze, and then staggered back, wide-eyed, stumbling over the chunk of cement. He dropped the rebar, spreading his hands—up, like he was unarmed—just in time for Max to tackle him nearly to the ground. She threw her arms around his neck, then punched him in the shoulder. 

“You’re _ alive,”  _ she yelled, crying again, and Billy put a shaky hand up to touch hers. He stared from her to the group sliding down the rubble into the area he’d cleared. 

Steve took in his surroundings slowly—the whole area under the dome was nearly _ clean,  _ Billy’d been working so hard shifting debris. Steve thought he should probably feel guilty, but all he could think about was the roughness of Billy’s stubble, mustache, and chapped lips. He’d felt _ solid. _

“Ssh, ssh,” Joyce told Max, beaming, and gave Billy a hug _ too,  _ while Steve watched his shocked face, and wondered if he had any idea who Joyce or even Jonathan were. Billy definitely recognized Eleven—his eyes widened further, and then he shot a bewildered, wary frown at Steve.

“Let’s get out of here,” Joyce said, and herded the troops back out. Max drug Billy by the wrist, and Steve followed, biting his lips, then touching them, like a moron. He jogged up next to Billy, and handed him two granola bars, and Billy stared at him, swallowing hard. When he stumbled, Steve reached for him, but Max yanked him along. Billy was rubbing his face like he wasn’t sure he was awake.

The demodog was back, wandering the parking lot with a couple of friends. They all walked as quietly as they could, watching the glistening hide of the thing catch the dim light. 

One of them wandered close, climbing a burned out car with a creak of dying tires and springs, and Billy stumbled, trying to keep an eye on it. His sneakers skidded on some gravel.

Max _ swore,  _ yanking him along, and all three demodogs went still.

They screamed, the growling voices reverberating all around, and Steve _ shoved  _ Billy towards the gate, herding everyone as fast as they could run. Joyce and the kids jumped through first, and then Steve pushed Billy’s back, while Max yanked from the other side. Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve waited, their backs to the gate, until he’d stumbled through, and then all clambered through at once. Behind them came the reverb of the demodogs, and Steve turned and braced himself with the bat, exchanging a nod with Nancy as she cocked the gun. 

Eleven took a shaky breath, the circles under her eyes nearly as dark as Billy’s, and raised her arms to _ yank  _ the gate shut. Blood trickled over her lips and chin, and she let herself slump into a tight hug from Max. 

Billy was sitting down right on the ground, staring at the sidewalk.

Steve crouched next to him, unwrapping the granola bars and wrapping Billy’s shaking hands around them. Billy just squinted at them, but he _ did  _ accept Joyce’s thermos of water, drinking steadily in gasps as Steve tried not to stare at the working of his throat. 

Joyce pulled Billy’s tank top down to look at where the Mindflayer had gone _ through  _ him. It was blackened, a lumpy cobweb of scars, but sealed over, and Steve found himself wanting to _ touch  _ it, feel that it was healed, and feel Billy breathing against him. 

He’d been chilly, in the Upside Down, when he’d yanked Steve against his chest.

“What,” Billy whispered, his eyes filling with tears. Joyce took the thermos back as he nearly dropped it trying to hold it out.

“Sssh,” Steve said under his breath, squeezing Billy’s shoulder. “Joyce,” he said, “—I, uh, I’m sorry, but could—could you take Max home? I’m gonna take Billy to get some food. Get him cleaned up.”

“Fuck,” Billy whispered, burying his face in his hands. Steve tightened his grip on Billy’s shoulder, and Joyce looked them over, and nodded. She came over and patted Steve’s back. 

“Good job, honey,” she said, frowning down at Billy. “...let me know if you need anything, okay? I think I’m gonna pick Will up, and head home.” She trotted over to the closest pay phone, and Steve heard her telling Will they were okay. 

Billy was just staring woodenly at the road, and Steve clenched his fists, wishing they’d all _ leave,  _ already. The granola bars were just sitting there in Billy’s hand, and Steve kind of wanted to just—shove one in Billy’s mouth, to make him sputter and yell, and—get him _ reacting.  _ Nancy and Jonathan lingered, watching him hover over Billy, and he stepped away self-consciously. 

Billy turned his head away, biting his lips.

“We can just all go back to Steve’s,” Nancy told Jonathan. “I can take Max home.”

Steve ignored them, crouching down next to Billy. “Hey,” he said, “—want some french fries?”

Billy nodded, and Steve helped him drag himself up, but Billy pulled away before they got to the car. When Steve got in, Billy cleared his throat. “...you’ve got money,” he said, and Steve frowned over, not thrilled with that opening. “Take me to a Greyhound Bus station,” Billy said.

“What?!” Steve stared over as he shifted into drive. “...no, what? You haven’t even talked to Max yet!”

_ “Fuck,”  _ Billy sighed, closing his eyes, and letting his head thunk back against the headrest. A _ tear  _ rolled down his cheek as they drove, and Steve tried to figure out what the hell he could _ say  _ to a person who found out he was _ alive,  _ and apparently it...wasn’t good news.

“Tell me what—what’s going on,” Steve tried, pulling into the McDonald’s. Billy’s stomach growled, but he didn’t say anything. “Um, you want—you want what I had? Burger and fries?”

“...sure,” Billy said, staring away out his side window. “Shit,” he whispered, rubbing his face. He closed his eyes.

“Billy, what—” Steve started, and Billy turned on him.

“I was _ dead!  _ I was—I was _ fucking dead,  _ it didn’t—it didn’t _ matter—” _

“...did you... _ want  _ to be dead,” Steve asked, his stomach sinking. 

“You were gonna take me home with you,” Billy laughed, half crying, and Steve couldn’t say anything, because he had to tell the lady at the window all about burger toppings, while Billy had a whole silent meltdown in the seat next to him. “I was—you kept coming around, I thought—”

“You _ are  _ home,” Steve argued, waving his hand around. “You’re alive, you can—”

“Take me to the bus station,” Billy said again. “Thanks for the burger, thanks for—” he cut off, swallowing hard, and then said “—I _ guess,”  _ like he’d never paused.

“Billy...” Steve sighed, quirking his mouth as he thought. He couldn’t stop replaying the _ kiss— _ of course that’s what they had been, he thought, pulling forward to the next window. Billy’d tried to hold his hand. He’d tried to hold _ Billy’s.  _ Steve accepted the bags of food, and paid, only half listening as the cashier took his money, and stared through at Billy, still covered in black gunge and dried blood. 

“I thought I was dead,” Billy said quietly, “—and I did a bunch of—stupid shit. Just—just put me on a fucking bus. I’ll go back to California. You’ll never see me again.”

“You haven’t even had a _ shower,”  _ Steve said weakly, and Billy threw a french fry at him. 

“You think I give a fuck? New _ fucking  _ beginnings, Harrington—”

“You’re all bloody,” Steve told him, turning down the road towards the Hargrove’s, and Billy opened the car door, dumping his fries all over the road.

“Harrington, no. Let me out,” he gritted out. “Slow down—” 

Steve swerved and pulled over, and the car behind them honked angrily until it was out of sight. “Wait! What are you doing—”

“I’m not _ going back there,”  _ Billy hissed at him, yanking at his seatbelt. His burger fell on the floor. 

“Wait, stop,” Steve said, grabbing his hand. “Billy. Is—is this about your dad?”

“Shut _ up,”  _ Billy shouted, shoving him away, and Steve scrambled out and around, holding the car door shut as Billy tried to push it open. It wasn’t hard to keep him in there, with as long as he’d been hungry and thirsty, and Steve cringed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he told Billy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I didn’t get it. I won’t take you back there. I’ll turn around. I’m turning around!”

“Bus station,” Billy said, sighing, and he leaned back in his seat again. Steve walked back around and got in, bit his lips together, and handed over _ his  _ burger and fries. Billy frowned down at the fries. “Get me the fuck out of here before he sees me, he might be—be driving _ home  _ or something—”

“Here, _ eat  _ them, I’ll get us out of here—” Steve told him, pushing the food at him again, and Billy took it, clutching at it instead of eating it. Steve set his jaw and did a U-turn right through traffic, gunning the motor amidst honks and speeding back to his apartment. Billy watched suspiciously out the window, eating fries, and then stiffened again. 

“The fuck—where the fuck did you bring me,” he hissed, and Steve cocked his head.

“My fucking apartment,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “Come on, you stink.”

“...well I guess something did come true,” Billy muttered, as Steve pulled into his parking spot.

“...y’know what, this would never have worked,” Steve said, and Billy raised his eyebrows, taking a bite of Steve’s burger. “I just thought about it,” Steve told him. “I mean. You’d—you’d have fallen through. I’d have had to get an apartment on the ground floor, or you’d have had to live with the neighbors.” Billy snorted a laugh, and Steve watched him eat for a second, leaning back in his seat. “You’d hate it,” Steve told him. “Those people basically only talk about casseroles. Because you’re _ alive,”  _ Steve stressed, “—you can walk up the stairs.”

“Mmmn,” Billy mumbled around a big bite.

“Seriously, I _ hate  _ moving,” Steve groaned, and Billy shot him a startled frown. “And!” Steve remembered, “And! You can use my stereo!” Steve told him. “You can pick out your own music.”

“That’s sure important,” Billy said sarcastically, shooting him an annoyed glance over the half-eaten burger. “Gee.”

“You can take a _ shower,”  _ Steve told him. “And eat that burger! Dead people can’t eat _ burgers,  _ Billy—”

“If I was really dead, I wouldn’t be so goddamn hungry,” Billy sighed, thumping against the seat as he sat back. 

“We can get your Camaro back,” Steve told him, and Billy paused. Steve saw a weakness and pressed. “I’ll go with Max and get all your shit. Stay here for a few days, at least.”

“...what the hell,” Billy muttered, frowning over. “Sleep on your couch?”

“Sure,” Steve nodded. “...because you’re _ alive,  _ you won’t fall through. You look _ beat,  _ dude.” Billy eyed him warily, sitting there until Steve walked around and dragged him out of the car. “Come _ on,  _ Hargrove,” Steve said, kind of _ wanting  _ to bring Billy home, like he’d planned at first, which was _ dumb,  _ because whatever he’d said to Steve about staying near him, Billy’s first thought had been exactly what Steve had thought it would be: California. He sighed. “You can go to California like you want ‘cause you’re alive, too.”

“Fuck you,” Billy muttered, like Steve was _ wrong,  _ and Steve steered him up the stairs. Billy was panting by the second landing, and Steve stopped, and grabbed his wrist to stop him. They leaned on the railing while Billy caught his breath. 

“You can lean on railings because you’re _ alive,”  _ Steve told him, and Billy raised his eyebrows, smirking at the view.

“You’re reaching.”

“You _ can,”  _ Steve told him. “Look, it’s kind of a nice view, right?” He waved at the trees, and the Radio Shack, and Billy snorted a laugh. _ “And,”  _ Steve told him, bumping shoulders, and watching Billy turn a little pink, “—it smells good here, right? It rained earlier.”

Billy sighed, leaning almost imperceptibly closer, and Steve put an arm around him, kind of _ liking  _ the stink, just because it meant he’d made it in time. 

“Come on up,” he said, and hauled Billy up to his door. “...okay,” he said, waving around, “—didn’t think I’d actually get you back here, uh, this is—the place. My, um, place.” 

Billy laughed, obviously trying to catch his breath, but he wandered in, stopping at the edge of the linoleum in the kitchen, and frowning down at Steve’s orange shag carpet, and his filthy shoes.

“It’s fine, nothing shows on this carpet,” Steve told him grimly, “—go take a shower.” He pointed to the bathroom, then, at Billy’s raised eyebrows, added, “...after you finish your fries.”

“You wanting to see me stripped down?” Billy asked, grinning, and pushing himself up on the counter.

Steve snorted, then remembered the kiss. “...that’s what this was all about, yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes, but his heart rate kicked up a notch, and he cleared his throat. “There’s my couch, you can—you can watch a movie with me now,” he told Billy, and laughed, feeling like he’d scored a point, “—because you’re _ alive.” _

“I guess,” Billy said, eating a french fry, and side-eyeing Steve again. 

“You can finish out that serial in _ Rolling Stone,”  _ Steve listed off, leaning against the cupboards. “I can—hey, I can get some beers later, you can get _ bombed  _ because you’re _ alive—” _

“I get it, jesus,” Billy told him, and Steve nodded, crossing his arms. 

“...it wasn’t...supposed to be a trick. I thought you were dead, I thought—I figured my apartment was better than the _ dump.” _

Billy chewed his bite of burger, and swallowed. “...when’d you realize?” 

“The flashlight,” Steve sighed. “I wasn’t sure until then, I thought—I didn’t want to tell you you _ might  _ die—”

“So you lemme think you were gonna take me back to your house, and—and all that bullshit about movies,” Billy laughed, but he sounded bitter. 

“...you wanna go to a movie?” Steve asked, pushing himself up. “We can go see a fucking movie—let’s _ go—” _

“Sit the fuck down,” Billy ordered him, smiling a little more genuinely, and Steve leaned back against the cupboards with a sigh. 

He bit his lips again, remembering the feeling of Billy’s against his. “...you can just...stay here,” he said again, narrowing his eyes at his shoes. “I’ll go get your car and your shit, maybe tomorrow?”

“He probably sold it,” Billy said darkly, and Steve glared over. 

“Okay, uh, you’re _ alive,”  _ he repeated, “—so you can get a _ job  _ and get another Camaro. Oh,” he said, stepping closer, “—you think you’d fit in my pants?” 

He stopped, because Billy started choking to death on his french fries and slipped off the counter, dropping to kneel on the floor and cough. 

Steve blinked down at him. “Are—are you _ okay— _ I mean, I could go get some while you’re in the shower, but if you think you’d fit in mine—”

“Jesus christ,” Billy groaned under his breath, coughing, and wiping his eyes. 

“Chew your food,” Steve told him, and got a death glower from knee-level. “And answer the question.”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about getting in your pants,” Billy said drily, and Steve burst into startled snickers. 

“...how about, uh,” Steve cleared his throat, and tried to stop _ giggling,  _ but Billy’d started laughing too, and finally Steve just slid down and sat with him on the kitchen floor, his sneakers nudging Billy’s leg. 

Billy shook with laughter, and Steve watched him, thinking he hadn’t...really...ever _ thought  _ about what Billy Hargrove would look like happy, but it felt good to have helped him get there. He felt a stupid temptation to moosh their heads together, remembered the kiss again, and the nervous giddyness made him snicker even harder.

Once Steve could talk—every time he opened his mouth, Billy lost it again, and set Steve off, like they were _ six— _ he tried to keep his voice steady and _ adult,  _ and Billy started snickering again. “I’ve got these awful _ elastic topped slacks,”  _ Steve said, trying to make them sound _ exciting.  _ “They’re _ maroon.  _ And they’re bunchy as fuck—” he dissolved into sniggers as Billy cackled.

“Why,” Billy asked, wiping his eyes. _ “Why?!” _

“They were a gift from my great-aunt,” Steve said archly, and Billy laughed so hard he slid sideways across the cupboards into the side of the stove. “I am _ sure  _ you’d fit in them,” Steve told him, waggling his eyebrows, and Billy buried his face in his arms, trying to breathe. 

“No,” he gasped. “Death first. Didn’t...didn’t come back for this shit. Didn’t...come back from the dead to wear your fuckin’ _ —granny pants,  _ Harrington, _ jesus.” _

“You can wear them to _ buy more clothes,”  _ Steve wheezed, wiping his eyes as he cried laughing. “You’ll look just—just like my great-uncle—you can carry licorice allsorts—”

“Gross!” Billy yelled, kicking at him, and Steve beamed back, shaking with silent giggles. 

For no reason at all, Billy turned red, watching him, and Steve cleared his throat. “Go—” he waved, still laughing. “Go get a shower, Hargrove. I’ll, uh, I’ll sit some clothes you might be able to use on the sink, okay.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, looking away, and chewing his lip. He licked his lips, and Steve watched, then yanked his gaze off _ Billy Hargrove’s mouth,  _ and his brain off the fact that Billy’s mouth had been _ on his.  _

“Oh,” Steve said, scrambling up. “I think I have a spare toothbrush.” He led the way to the bathroom, then crouched to dig around under the sink. “Here’s my razor,” he said, waving his hand at the electric one hanging next to the sink.

Billy leaned in the doorway. “So your...girlfriend won’t mind me staying here a few days,” he said, inspecting his bloodied, broken nails.

“Don’t have one,” Steve muttered, focused on the hunt. He yanked his nail kit out and smacked it down on the toilet.

“...got any other...kind of friend?” Billy asked, exactly the kind of question that wasn’t helpful when you were trying not to remember someone kissing you, and Steve looked up at him.

“None of those either,” he said drily, and Billy nodded quickly. All of him was pinker, now, out of the Upside Down, but his cheeks and ears were pinker still. Steve sighed. “You can stay as long as you want,” he said, shrugging, and Billy nodded, but his smile looked...tense. 

Steve stood up. “Hey,” he said, leaning to catch Billy’s eye. “I mean it.” Billy snorted a laugh, looking away, and Steve wanted to _ groan.  _ “Hey, I don’t know what—” he started, and stopped, uncertain where he was going— _ ’I don’t know what the fuck that was in Starcourt’  _ seemed kind of—Steve knew what a _ kiss  _ was. _ ‘I don’t know what you want’  _ was...probably a lie too. 

He sighed, watching Billy’s eyes close and clench shut, and finally just grabbed Billy’s hand, squeezing it. “You should stay,” he said, as Billy opened his eyes and frowned down at their hands, his mouth opening a little, silently. His hand was trembling, still, and a little sticky. 

It was a little odd to squeeze a hand the same size as Steve’s own, but also satisfyingly sturdy. Steve watched Billy for a long second, cataloguing his broad, muscled shoulders. Steve felt suddenly, painfully relieved that Billy was sturdy enough to _ last  _ that long, and not just—die, before Steve ever found him. Steve drew a deep breath, smelling the Upside-Down, and sighed. “Just—stay, for a while, okay.”

Billy licked his lips again, his eyes downcast, and Steve pulled away, stalking off to the bedroom determinedly to find the _ worst clothes he could.  _


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy's home. Neither of them can quite believe it.

Steve hesitated at the door of the bathroom, then yanked it open, and deposited the horrible burgundy pants, and some fruit-of-the-looms his mom had sent in his _ dad’s  _ size. The crowning glory of the selection was the massive _ Aristocats  _ t-shirt his aunt had given him for his sixth birthday, for sleeping in. 

His bathroom smelled like shampoo, and steam, and an underlying rotten funk, so he grabbed Billy’s clothes and tossed them in a trash bag to wash later. The jeans might be salvageable, after about ten washes, he thought. “You need anything?” he asked, and heard a loud series of _ thumps  _ as Billy dropped something and it bounced off every surface in there. 

“Wanna wash my ass, pretty boy?” Billy asked, sounding more startled than sultry, and Steve rolled his eyes and backed back out. 

He found an extra pillow for the couch, and some sheets, and then he frowned around, taking stock, and realized he was still a mess himself. He sighed, and opened the bathroom door again to find Billy just yanking the shower curtain back. He struck a pose, dick out, flexing his biceps and ass.

Steve snorted a laugh and shut the door. “Pizza or Chinese?” he called, leaning back against it.

Billy yelled back “C’mon in, Harrington, don’t be shy!”

“You want Chinese food or—or pizza food?” Steve hollered, over his shoulder, as he sat against the door, grinning as his face warmed. 

“Jumpin’ jesus,” he heard Billy mutter from inside, and then, angrier, “...what the _ shit  _ is this garbage?! Who the fuck—I could fit three of my entire asses in this pair of tighty-whities, _ Harrington—” _

Steve went straight to the can’t-breathe, crying stage of laughter, sliding down the door as Billy yelled.

“What the fuck _ are  _ these slacks?! I look like a Barbie somebody stuck in a can of cranberry sauce—who the fuck—are these _ cartoon cats,  _ why you putting _ cartoon cats  _ on my titties— _ Steven Fuckoff Harrington _ —”

“I’m sure you look _ very nice,”  _ Steve gasped, giggling so hard his face and lungs _ ached.  _ “Hope you left some hot water, too, I need to—” his words failed as Billy stormed out of the bathroom, red faced and clean shaven, squirming in the ill-fitting pants as the oversize t-shirt slid over one of his shoulders. His hair was still tangled, but his freckles were all showing where they’d been hidden by grime, and he looked like a kid ready for a slumber party—except his _ mustache,  _ and all his muscles, and his earring.

“I’m _ burning  _ this shirt,” he hissed. “I didn’t _ come back from the dead  _ for this, you can loan me a _ normal fucking shirt,  _ Harrington—”

“You could go _ shirtless,”  _ Steve told him, and Billy snorted, gripping the awful grey t-shirt in his fist. It crumpled the picture of the cats playing the piano, that until you looked close, looked like they were in a crowd waiting around the outhouse. 

“Oh, yeah, lot of that in _ my  _ future,” Billy muttered. His handful of shirt showed a strip of hairy stomach, and tugged the fabric down further over his shoulder. There was a drip hanging off his earring, and as Steve watched, it dripped down his collarbones.

“...I’m taking a shower now,” Steve said in a weird flat monotone, scrambling up to run into his bedroom. He ducked back in the bathroom without looking for Billy, wondering whether it was just _ Billy— _ he imagined Cindy Crawford in his head as he stripped down, and his dick twitched, informing him she was still just as hot as _ Billy Hargrove,  _ with his clothes half sliding off him, and his skin warm and damp from the shower. 

Steve set his jaw and considered the guy that played Blackie in General Hospital, and— _ that  _ was nice, he thought blankly, imagining _ him  _ yanking the shower curtain back. He groaned into his hands and showered until the water’d gone cold, thinking up questions to ask Robin at work, when music started _ pounding  _ from the front room. 

He scrambled out, threw the door open, and yelled _ “I have neighbors, y’know,”  _ and Billy yelled back _ “What?!” _

Steve ended up grilling some cheese sandwiches. Billy fell asleep sitting _ right in the way  _ on the floor next to him, leaning against the cupboard. He looked kind of hilarious, his neck and shoulder exposed like he was a kid in his dad’s t-shirt, and Steve crouched for a long moment and watched him sleep. 

“Hargrove,” he said, finally, and Billy’s hands jerked, but he curled closer to the cupboard, frowning in his sleep. “Come on, Billy,” Steve whispered. “Come sit on the couch and eat.”

“.....fuck off,” Billy mumbled, and Steve just waited for no reason, watching him blink awake, just _ sat  _ there watching Billy slowly wake up and rub his face. 

“Come on,” Steve told him, holding a hand out, and he drug Billy upright—mostly—and pushed him over to the couch. He couldn’t resist flicking Billy’s earring as it brushed over his knuckles, and Billy glared blearily at him. “Here, sandwich,” Steve said, and Billy grabbed it, sinking his teeth in with a crunch, and then breathing rapidly into his hand.

“...mmfucking _ molten,”  _ he muttered, taking another bite. 

“Well don’t eat it, then, dumbshit,” Steve told him, getting his own sandwich. He grabbed soda, stopped to consider, and got them both water. “You...wanna watch that movie? Now?”

“Forgot about grilled cheese,” Billy said moodily, eyeing it like a betrayal. “Worth it for grilled cheese. Jesus. Mom used to—uh.”

Steve waited for the end of _ that  _ sentence, but Billy just ate, avoiding his gaze. “...okay,” Steve said, off-balance. 

“I can eat grilled cheese because I’m _ not dead,”  _ Billy sighed. “Fine. Thanks or whatever, _ Harrington.” _

“...how come you’re so mad about it,” Steve asked, trying not to laugh as he ate his own.

“...fucking love grilled cheese,” Billy growled. 

“You want another one?” Steve offered, licking his fingers, and Billy forgot the sandwich he was holding and watched. Steve paused, then started sucking his fingers _ slower,  _ and Billy made a weird growly noise deep in his throat, narrowing his eyes. 

“I definitely want _ something,”  _ he said, and Steve laughed and got up to run in the kitchen and stick his _ steaming hot face  _ in the fridge. “...why’m I a fucking queer, it ruins everything, right,” Billy called sharply, laughing.

Steve froze at the admission. His whole body was still hot from—from _ sucking his fingers  _ at Billy Hargrove, but he hadn’t really thought about what it _ meant— _ to everyone else, or to Billy, and maybe his dad _.  _ He leaned back against the counter, folding his arms in thought. 

“Doesn’t matter if you’re queer if you’re _ dead,”  _ Billy said, louder.

“...grilled cheese, though,” Steve called back. “If—if you were dead, you couldn’t have grilled cheese, so…”

“...the fuck does _ that  _ mean,” Billy growled, and Steve told himself _ enough— _ despite his face still _ flaming— _ and marched himself back out of the kitchen. He sat down so close to Billy their arms were squished together. 

He picked up his own sandwich and ate it, glaring at his plate, more from nerves than anything else. Billy was tense against him.

“D’you wanna go back to sleep—” Steve started, around a mouthful of sandwich, and Billy cut him off. He was kind of side-eyeing where their arms and thighs were pressed together, like he couldn’t look away.

“I’m not that tired,” he said, as Steve raised his eyebrows doubtfully. Steve opened his mouth to call bullshit, but Billy stiffened further. “We can watch a movie, since I’m _ alive  _ and all.”

“I can see what’s on,” Steve started, reaching for the remote, and Billy snatched it. He switched through channels angrily, pressed against Steve’s side. 

“Not worth living for,” he said, clicking through two game shows, and then pausing, frozen, on a commercial with horrible animatronic robot bears. Their blocky teeth caught the light as they marched in place, twitching. Billy stared, his nose wrinkled.

“...that what gets your engine running?” Steve asked, once he’d swallowed enough of the half-sandwich he’d wedged in his mouth. “Fredbear’s and Friends?”

“Fuck you,” Billy muttered, clicking it again, and Steve saw sky and cape, and smacked Billy’s leg. 

“Superman! Let’s watch Superman!”

“...I dunno,” Billy hummed, tapping the remote on his chin. “I dunno if _ Superman  _ is really—”

“It’s a _ marathon,”  _ Steve breathed. “All three movies!”

“That’s definitely not a reason to live,” Billy groaned, but Steve turned to face him, taking his hand to present his most fervent argument. 

“Grilled cheese, too, though,” he said, squeezing Billy’s hand, and Billy swallowed, watching their fingers. “Grilled cheese, _ and  _ you got french fries. And a _ shower,  _ and we’ll get your stuff, _ and  _ Superman.”

“Yeah, there’s...definitely enough...worth it here,” he said, sounding strangled. “Worth being alive,” he said softly.

Steve grinned at him, victorious. 

“I’m gonna fall asleep before I get through _ three movies,  _ though,” Billy said, and Steve shrugged. 

“You’ve slept on me before,” he pointed out, and Billy’s ears _ reddened.  _

Their skin stuck together in the heat of an Indiana afternoon, but Steve only wanted to lean closer. When Billy slowly let his head lean into Steve’s shoulder, Steve did an exaggerated yawn and stretch, sliding his arm around Billy’s shoulders to yank him closer, and Billy laughed, relaxing a little more against his side.

A while in to the movie, when Clark was talking to Lois, and Steve was whispering along, the phone rang. Steve got up to answer, and Billy’s fingers clenched in his arm. Steve frowned at him. 

“I gotta answer,” he whispered, “—it could be El, or Joyce—”

Billy released him, taking a deep breath, and Steve grabbed the handset and the base to sit in front of Billy on the floor—the farthest the cord could reach. “Steve Harrington,” he said. 

“Where is he?” Max hissed in his ear. 

“He, um,” Steve frowned at Billy, who was glaring at him warily, and put it on speaker. “Why?”

“Is he coming _ back?”  _ she whispered, even quieter. “I need to know whether to—to pack his stuff, or—”

Billy took a shuddery breath, clenching his fingers in the couch cushion.

“He’s staying with me,” Steve told her. “I’m—I’m keeping him.”

“What,” she said, with a disbelieving laugh, and Billy snorted.

“My car still around somewhere?” he asked, and she hummed thoughtfully.

“Maybe I have some stuff of yours,” she said. “Maybe somebody needs to promise to teach me to drive.” 

Billy’s eyes narrowed. _ “Look,  _ hellspawn—”

“I could teach you to drive,” Steve offered, and Max and Billy both scoffed. 

“You drive _ automatic,”  _ Billy said, rolling his eyes.

“I said _ teach me to drive,”  _ Max snorted. “Not _ play bumper cars.” _

“Hey!” Steve huffed, grinning. 

“It’d take a few times, probably,” Max said. “Mom can’t teach me, and I wanna learn in Neil’s car, and grind his gears. But, um,” she dropped to a mumble, and then cleared her throat. “—I can’t learn right away—so—um—” 

Steve suddenly realized what she was asking—faster than Billy, he thought, who was glowering blankly at the phone.

“He’s staying here,” Steve said again, frowning up at Billy, who jerked his head up, staring back. “He’s not going back to California, not right away, anyway.”

“He’s just—staying with you,” she repeated. “For—for how long, though, he’s—um, his dad’s just gonna get more pissed the longer he stays away—”

Steve clenched his fists. “He’s—he’s not going back there. Ever.”

Billy leaned his face in his cupped hands, closing his eyes with a shaky sigh. 

“...I can...pack up your stuff,” she said slowly. “And I didn’t try and learn to drive in your Camaro. It’s, um—I told him you shacked up with somebody, he thinks you’re coming back, he’s just—he’s not even mad, more than—more than he usually—I have everything, I can get it packed—”

Billy’s eyes went a little shiny before he cleared his throat, and wiped them.

“I can come help,” Steve told her. “When he’s at work.”

“Thanks, Max,” Billy said, staring at Steve again, like he was doing something weird. “I owe you...more than one.”

“Lots more,” she said darkly, and he laughed, wincing. “...you did save El, though,” she said. “I—I wished I could’ve...thanked you. For that. After.”

“...sorry I fucking... _ made  _ this whole mess,” Billy told her, laughing again, and Steve scooted closer, reaching out to touch Billy’s knee.

“Yeah,” Max sighed. “You always _ were  _ a fucking mess.”

“Thanks for helping clean up my mess,” he said, and she sniffled, and cleared her throat just like he had, sounding gruff. 

“...I’m glad you’re back, Billy,” she said, and _ his  _ eyes went red, spilling tears down his cheeks and over his fingers, as he tried to draw a steady breath. She sounded just as wrecked on the other end. “K-keep him, uh. Keep an eye on him for me, Harrington.”

“...I will,” Steve told her, and hung up, curling up next to Billy on the couch. Billy was drawing slow breaths, staring in the general direction of Superman, and Steve leaned into him, feeling Billy’s shoulders shudder as he took slow breaths, and wiped his eyes. 

“...you still wanna…” Steve jerked his thumb at Superman II, and Billy pushed himself up and stomped off into the bathroom. Steve could hear him blowing his nose. 

“Yeah, I’m _ fine,  _ Harrington,” he said when he came out, as he swayed a little, and grabbed the doorway to steady himself. He stared Steve down like he was gonna argue. 

Steve tried to think of what to say, watching him. “...I can let you sleep—”

“I’m _ fine,”  _ Billy growled, sitting next to him, kinda clumsily, so their shoulders and elbows thunked together. His head drooped almost instantly, and he shook it. 

“...okay,” Steve said, watching Billy’s knuckles whiten. “Um, hey, I remembered another reason to be glad you’re not dead.”

_ “What,”  _ Billy spat, glaring. 

“Ice cream,” Steve said, waggling his eyebrows. “Just around the corner. I’ve got flip-flops, come on.”

Billy looked just as suspicious of ice cream as he did everything else, but he let Steve draw him out and tug him down the stairs. People did double-takes at _ Billy Hargrove  _ with his stylish but tangled half-flat mullet, his earring, and his lopsided _ Aristocats  _ shirt over the horrible bunchy maroon slacks, but he didn’t notice. Steve kept an arm around him, both wanting to remember _ everything  _ to tease him later, and prevent him from wanting into traffic. 

The lady behind the counter asked Billy about cats, and started telling him about her own calico, but Steve steered him away before he could do more than look perplexed. 

“Here we go,” Steve told him, parking him in front of the frozen case. “Look. Rocky Road, _ there’s  _ a reason to be glad you’re alive.”

“Rum raisin,” Billy pointed out, making a face. “Reason to wish I wasn’t.”

“Don’t _ buy  _ it, then,” Steve told him, rolling his eyes, and they bought mint chip, and Billy grabbed a half-gallon of _ neapolitan,  _ which Steve frowned at, trying not to make a face. 

“I’ll eat it,” Billy muttered, his cheeks going pink again, and Steve bit back a grin. 

“If you _ stay,  _ I’ll make sure we never run out of neapolitan ice cream,” he pledged, and Billy’s head whipped around to glare warily at him. Steve held his pinky up solemnly, and when Billy’s expression didn’t change, Steve picked Billy’s hand up, and linked their pinkies. “You will always have neapolitan ice cream if you stay with me,” he said again, and Billy stared at their hands. 

“...gonna get fat as hell,” he muttered, and Steve snorted. 

“Because you’re _ alive,”  _ he whispered back, and Billy shot him a weirded-out smile.

The check-out lady beamed at Billy’s shirt again, and Steve sighed internally and made a mental note to ask her about her cats. 

Billy let himself be tugged back to Steve’s apartment building, then stood staring up at the stairs like they were the stairway all the way up to heaven. 

“You need a piggyback ride?” Steve asked him, and Billy stalked defiantly up the first flight, then stopped, grabbing the railing at the top. “...you stay right here,” Steve told him, “—and I’m gonna go stick this ice cream in the freezer. Wait for me.”

“M’ getting good at that,” Billy said, but didn’t argue, and Steve hauled ass up the three flights and wedged the cartons in the freezer. They didn’t fit, so he tossed some frozen peas in the sink that he only bought for an ice pack, anyway. He turned for the door, then stopped, called Robin, and called in sick for the next couple days, and she asked what the hell was going _ on.  _ “...I am gonna have so much to tell you,” he said, laughing. “But I gotta go.”

Billy was sitting about halfway up the next flight. “Shit,” he mumbled. “God, I can’t even walk up—look.” He held out a hand, and it shook.

“You made it, though,” Steve told him, dropping to sit next to him on the stair. “You made it out. I’m...I’m sorry it took me so long. We couldn’t get through.”

“...what?” Billy asked, frowning at him.

“We tried opening a gate by my old house,” Steve said, shrugging. “We couldn’t get through, so I tried to get a map—”

“...today wasn’t the first time you tried,” Billy said, staring at Steve like this was _ news.  _ “You—you kept trying.”

“Sorry,” Steve grimaced. “I had to get Eleven to open a gate, and then—well, you saw me,” he said, shrugging, and Billy made a weird strained noise in the back of his throat. “We got lost, and then, y’know, there’s other stuff in there.”

“Jesus,” Billy whispered, gripping Steve’s hand. _ “Jesus.” _

“Sorry I made you wait so long,” Steve said again, and then Billy was _ kissing  _ him, kind of half on his mouth, scratchy and soft and warm. 

Billy shoved away and stomped up the rest of the flights of stairs. By the top flight, he was staggering and panting, so Steve put an arm around him to help.

He fell asleep on the couch, his head on Steve’s shoulder through _ Superman III.  _ His hair tickled Steve’s ear. Steve got distracted watching the sunset in the same place he’d watched the sunrise—with Billy, on the same day. It turned the whole room orange, then grey. He stared at the movie for a while, then watched Billy trying to pull his legs up in his sleep, and banging them into the arm of the couch. Steve squirmed away, catching Billy by the shoulder and head and lowering him to the cushions. 

The bed was too warm even with the fan going, and Steve stared at the ceiling for a couple hours, then wandered back out again, silently, to see Billy crouched on the floor in the dark. The apartment was hazily lit at night by the streetlamps below, but Billy was just a dark, bluish shape by the stereo, so Steve flipped the lights on, and Billy yelled, glaring over at him and lowering his arms to his sides again.

“Sorry,” Steve told him, trying not to smirk. “The hell are you doing in the dark?”

“Having a _ heart attack,”  _ Billy hissed back at him, but when Steve wandered closer, he scooted over, yanking him down by the shirt, and Steve dropped to sit cross legged next to him. “I didn’t wanna wake you up,” Billy said, leaning in so his whole side pressed against Steve’s like they just _ did  _ that now.

Steve slid an arm around Billy’s waist, watching him pick through Steve’s records and scoff. 

“...thought you’d been to the music store,” he muttered, and Steve snorted a laugh. 

“You gonna take me? Pick me out something nice?”

“...I’d need to get a job, first,” Billy said, glancing over, and Steve nodded.

“Yeah, I need somebody that can take me out in style,” Steve said, laughing, and Billy thumped his head against the side of Steve’s with a _ thunk.  _

Steve tried not to laugh at Billy’s face.

“...forgot I’m alive now,” he muttered, his ears flushing again, and Steve leaned their heads together.

Billy tried a bunch of Steve’s music, muttering rudely about most of it, and Steve watched the clock tick by two in the morning, his hand smoothing up and down Billy’s ribs. Billy glanced up at him after saying something Steve didn’t really pay attention to, and Steve shook his head.

“Sorry. What?”

Billy smirked, watching him. “Why’re you up?”

“I can be up, it’s my apartment,” Steve told him, and Billy laughed. “Why’re _ you  _ up,” Steve volleyed back, triumphant, and Billy rolled his eyes.

“Kinda weird and quiet here. Nothing _...roaring,  _ y’know,” he huffed a laugh, and Steve bit his lips.

“...I was gonna read more of that book,” he started, and Billy raised his eyebrows, unconvinced.

“That creepy as shit book? You woke up to read that?”

“I was gonna read more of that book,” Steve said, feeling his cheeks heat, “—so, uh. If—if you want—”

“You gonna sit here and—” Billy started, frowning in confusion, but Steve got the words out, finally.

“‘F you wanna sleep—in there,” he said, unable to say _ sleep in my bed.  _ “I’ll be reading, I can—I’ll keep watch. For you.”

“Sleep...in...you want me to sleep in your room?” Billy asked, cautiously, and Steve nodded, biting his lips together. “That another thing I can do ‘cause I’m alive?”

“Yeah, sure,” Steve told him, grinning as he went and dug through his bag for the awful book. “You’re alive, so you don’t have to sleep anywhere _ shitty  _ anymore, like a _ parking lot.” _

“Or your shoulder,” Billy said, wandering by, and Steve glared at him.

He didn’t _ exactly  _ want to read more, but he grabbed it, and nearly banged into Billy as he walked back out of the kitchen. Billy was brushing his teeth—again—and Steve followed suit, bumping shoulders and hips as they tried to maneuver in the small bathroom. 

Billy yanked at his hair in frustration, and Steve squinted, grabbed his comb, and worked a knot out of the fine hairs at the back of Billy’s neck, wincing every time Billy twitched. More tangles caught on his fingers as he tried to smooth the curls he’d combed, fluffy and silken now, and Steve narrowed his eyes in concentration. After a while Billy just leaned on the sink, watching Steve as Steve felt for tangles and carefully began tugging at the bottom hairs with the comb.

“...should probably just cut it off,” Billy muttered, and Steve frowned at him in the mirror. 

“...d’you want to cut it off?”

“It’s a pain in the ass, right,” Billy said, frowning at him, and Steve shrugged.

“I don’t mind,” he said, tugging carefully at a new section. As he the minutes ticked by, he glanced at Billy’s face in the mirror, because it looked like he’d forgotten Steve could see him, and he’d gone all watery-eyed and pink-cheeked, his eyes downcast. 

Steve’s heart pounded too, his dick twitching in his pants as Billy’s ass brushed his hips and crotch every time he stepped in. _ Who’d have thought he could work even those pants,  _ Steve thought, stepping around Billy’s side to comb out the tangles by his face. He could feel the heat in Billy’s cheeks and ears as his fingers brushed through soft, fluffy curls. 

Billy’s nails where he gripped the sink were still jagged, and once Steve could comb through his curls without catching, and Billy couldn’t stop sniggering in the mirror at the fluffy mane around his head, Steve sat the comb down. “Here, siddown on the toilet,” he said, grabbing his nail kit.

“...gonna give me a _ manicure,”  _ Billy snarled, his shoulders tightening, and Steve sat on the edge of the tub, and squinted up at him. 

“...you look like you dug your way out of a grave, dude,” he said, and Billy snort-laughed, still pink-cheeked. Steve tugged him down to sit on the toilet seat, and pulled the clippers out, balancing the little bathroom wastebasket between them.

“...seems like they should be even longer,” Steve muttered, and Billy snorted. 

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t bleed to death,” Billy laughed shortly. “Everything slowed down.”

Steve nodded, frowning, and grabbed one of Billy’s hands. He started clipping his nails fairly close, as Billy’s fingers trembled faintly, and he turned so red he nearly matched his granny pants. Steve finished clipping, and Billy sighed, clenching his fingers on the edge of the toilet, then straightened, leaning in for more as Steve pulled the nail file out. 

Under Billy’s intense scrutiny, Steve took his time, sliding his fingers over Billy’s to get the right angle on each jagged edge. He was nearly as red as Billy, he was pretty sure, since he could feel his heartbeat in his _ skin.  _ He brushed the file over a _ short  _ broken bit, and Billy sucked in a breath.

Steve froze, searching his face, but Billy shook his head, looking away. “...keep going,” he mumbled. “I-if you want.”

“Oh, I _ want,”  _ Steve muttered, catching Billy’s fingers again, and Billy laughed disbelievingly. Steve wondered about nail polish, suddenly—he knew there were clear coats, if Billy was worried about people seeing—and the idea of holding his fingers and gently painting, like he and Robin did when they were high, took on a whole new dimension. 

Once Steve had finished, he turned Billy’s fingers in his, looking for anywhere rough, and Billy rubbed the edge of his thumbnail and held it out. After that, he ran his fingertips over all the edges of his nails.

“...can’t find anymore,” he said, laughing, but he didn’t pull his hands back from Steve’s, and Steve just squeezed them for a long moment, girding himself. Billy looked up, finally, his freckles invisible over his deep blush, and Steve stared deep in his eyes, slid his hand into Billy’s fluffy, shining halo, and gently bonked their heads together.

Billy burst out laughing, leaning into Steve’s shoulder, and Steve squeezed him hard, swallowing. “...thanks,” Billy whispered.

Steve bit his lips and nodded, grabbed Billy’s hand and the book, and stalked off to bed. 

He got in the side he usually slept on, and turned on the reading lamp. Billy left the horrible clothes on, and Steve couldn’t quite make himself tell him he didn’t need to. The awful polyester pants made a _ vzzzsh  _ noise as Billy slid carefully down next to him, pulling the covers up with his whole attention on Steve, every move in slow motion.

“Just—lie the hell down,” Steve told him, wondering whether his cheeks would be hot _ forever,  _ and opening his book. A folded napkin fell out, and he sat it on his chest, as Billy sighed contentedly against the pillows. 

“Life _ is  _ worth living,” Billy told the ceiling, his fluffed hair blowing in the fans, and Steve snorted, grinning. Billy rolled to watch him.

It was hard to _ read  _ with Billy Hargrove _ staring at his face,  _ so he stuck his tongue out at him, and Billy started snickering, and scooted closer. He looked kind of...adorable, Steve thought in disgust, feeling his own cheeks heating as he looked over Billy’s curls hanging in his face until he tucked them back. 

“Read me your scary book, Harrington,” Billy whispered, so Steve _ did,  _ and then he tried to _ explain,  _ and then he rolled his eyes and started again, from the beginning. Billy listened raptly to the story of a murderous ghost car, his eyes drifting shut, and breathed warmly against Steve’s shoulder. He dozed off pretty quick, and Steve read on, for a while, until Billy began twitching and whining deep in his throat.

“Billy,” Steve whispered, licking his fingers, and turning the page. It would have been easy to keep waking Billy all the way up, and Billy wouldn’t _ mind,  _ but he’d spent long enough without sleeping. “Billy Hargrove.”

Billy bolted upright, panting, and stared blankly at Steve’s wall for a long moment. He turned, finally, to look at Steve, squinting like he didn’t quite believe what he saw. 

“I’m real, go to sleep,” Steve told him, and Billy grinned.

He rubbed his face, and crawled over to brush a soft kiss to Steve’s lips—Steve froze in shock—before dropping _ right on top  _ of him so Steve wheezed out an _ OOF,  _ and couldn’t even _ see the damn book  _ around Billy’s head. 

Billy nuzzled his head under Steve’s chin.

Steve glared at the ceiling, biting back a grin, sighed, and tugged the napkin from under Billy’s shoulder to mark the book. He flailed an arm and couldn’t _ quite  _ reach the switch for the light, so he let his arm dangle for a long moment while he grimaced at the ceiling, and then he sighed, and tucked his arms under the blanket.  His hand slid under the awful shirt and over the lumpy rippling of the scar tissue on Billy’s back, and Billy twitched, going a little tense.

“...sorry,” Steve whispered. “Can—can I just—”

“What,” Billy asked flatly.

“You have these because you’re alive,” Steve whispered again, his throat feeling thick, and his eyes burning, a little, as his fingers explored the ridged flesh. He slide his other hand up Billy’s awful _ Aristocats  _ shirt too, and Billy shivered.

Steve squeezed him tighter, burying his face in Billy’s curls with a shuddering breath. Billy relaxed, slowly, into his arms, squirming to get his arms around Steve, and laughing softly. He was heavy, and real, and his breath was warm against Steve’s neck. 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Thank you so much for wandering in! Lemme know if you liked my story--I lovelovelove hearing from people, whether it's kudos, a keysmash, emoticons, comments as extra kudos, or an essay on something random you thought! Thanks so, so much! XD** (I try to reply to each one, but if you don't want a response to your comment then please say "No reply please" or "Whisper" so I'll know not to reply.)
> 
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